From Bat Soup to Bean Sprouts: Coronavirus Food Fears in Historical Perspective

This article is part of the series: Dispatches from the pandemic

On a trip to Shandong, China, at the end of January 2020, a few days after the lockdown of Wuhan, I watched a video of a stewed bat on Douyin – the Chinese video-sharing app. The bat sat in a bowl of soup, its boiled skin drawn back across its face to reveal its teeth, almost as if maliciously grinning. …

Lectures

May 3, 2020

Clean in Times of Covid-19: on Hygiene and Pollution

By Mandy de Wilde, Weera Koopman and Annemarie Mol

This article is part of the series: Dispatches from the pandemic

As the coronavirus pandemic spreads, air pollution and greenhouse emissions decrease, or so news reports say. The satellite images of China in lockdown provided a first striking example. In response to this, one Dutch newspaper even proclaimed ‘a winner’ in the coronavirus pandemic, namely ‘the environment’. But that is a bit too hasty. Not only are (as environmental experts warn) …

Somatosphere

Science, Medicine, and Anthropology

A collaborative website covering the intersections of medical anthropology, science and technology studies, cultural psychiatry, psychology and bioethics.

Tag Archives: Hygiene

From Bat Soup to Bean Sprouts: Coronavirus Food Fears in Historical Perspective

Clean in Times of Covid-19: on Hygiene and Pollution